Magnate forgets his $14 windfall

Queensland property magnate Kevin Seymour has been doing a bit of share selling lately – he doesn’t have much confidence in the equities market at the moment – including a $22 million sale of a stake in Tatts Group.

He’s a director of that company and a few others, including property investment company Ariadne Australia.

It turns out he’s been selling down his stake in Ariadne as well, although there’s a bit of a twist. Ariadne recently completed the buyback of unmarketable parcels of shares worth $500 or less. Holders of unmarketable parcels were given six weeks in which to exclude their shares from the sale process and 325 shareholders elected to retain theirs.

Those who didn’t had their shares sold at 31¢ each, the volume-weighted average price in March and early April.

Seymour was one who had shares sold for him. In his case, a mere 46 were sold – fetching the BRW Rich List member a cool $14.26. Ariadne answered a “please explain" yesterday because the sales were on May 31 and the change of directors interest notice was lodged on June 10. It turns out it was an oversight by Seymour not to lodge the necessary paperwork to stop the share sale. He still owns about 11.6 million Ariadne shares in various investment vehicles.